Vampires and beyond in Dungeon Fantasy

[Arith Winterfell]

I've always been fascinated by vampires and I thought I'd share a bit of my thoughts about them (pardon the incoming treatise). I'll get into why in a bit, but they are a key element in shaping my Dungeon Fantasy game. First, I want to add that I want to go beyond just Dungeon Fantasy's focus on dungeons and build a full on background deep world and have adventures have elements for interacting socially with that world. I'm also not fixed on using literal vampires directly, but rather some of the resonant essence of the vampire figure in culture and literature in some form.

I've done a good deal of reading about vampires and Gothic literature. From Dracula, to Polidori's Vampyre, to modern day RPG vampire games like Vampire (both Masquerade and Requiem) and studied both Vampire mythology and literary criticism written about vampires, as well as developing my own take on them.

To me vampires are figures which draw together certain primal aspects of human existence namely: Alienation and the longing we have as social creature to connect with each other. As human beings we often face a Hedgehog's Dilemma in which human intimacy lies torn between the need for intimacy and the pain which relationships can cause.

Vampires are figures of alienation on one facet. They are walking dead things. Death itself is the ultimate in alienation as it severs all bonds of relationships between the living and the dead. It moves the once living person into the state of being an Other or a object/thing rather than a person any longer (which is part of death's visceral horror). This plays out in many forms from being explored in Interview with a Vampire where the desire for connection takes the form of embracing the girl Claudia, the ensuing relationship she has with Louis. While Claudia's death highlights the ultimate element of the vampire's isolation and alienation from the world. This also plays out in some forms of the artistic representation of the vampire, such as in the figure of Nosferatu embodied by his ugliness and shadowy nature.

In contrast you have the intimacy elements of the vampire in the act of feeding and exchange of blood. Not only is this often a stand in or symbol in more recent books and films for sexual intimacy, but to me it embodies the desperate need to connect with others again. To go beyond being just a "cold corpse." To take back into itself warmth and life. Just as intimacy can embody such a crossing of boundaries to lead to a union of individuals (when two are "one") the vampire's act of feeding blurs the boundaries between intimacy and consumption.

But here in lies the central twist of the vampire archetype. For to be consumed is one of the most primal fears that exists. Once more death isolates the vampire in the form of the union of feeding becoming that of life taking. The longing for union is tainted by death. This or it is tainted by the need for control. This takes the form of everything from the vampire's hypnotic voice, dominating gaze, or the act of turning a victim into a servitor vampire itself. In itself this dominance is part of consumption. As psychologically the existence of healthy boundaries are dissolved and one is psychologically and physically consumed by the other. For the vampire, love is to devour, to destroy what one loves. And so the vampire returns to its isolation and alienation only to seek to repeat the patterns of the past.

So what does all this have to do with Dungeon Fantasy and my fantasy setting design using GURPS? Well I'm aiming to capture all of these elements to create something new that resembles the vampire in the above discussed essence, but becomes something unique to itself rather than just another vampire.

So far on my own I've explored two general sets of ideas a "blood drinking sorcerer" or a "something/mind devouring mystic (aka telepath or psion)."

The blood drinking sorcerer springs from the idea that there are people in the setting who are born with and develop sorcery powers (as per the Thaumatology Sorcery book), however this access to magic also alters them causing them to crave human blood, and while they can still eat normal food and drink, they become predatory and consumed by the need for blood. Some are twisted in the flesh to become ugly or hideous. All hide their powers and live from the shadows. It's commonly thought they are figures doomed to become monstrosities given time. (Though its not known for certain). Their act of feeding on victims inflicts the victim with intense pleasure, an addiction to being fed on again (both using addiction rules, and affliction with Uncontrollable Appetite (being fed upon)).

Similarly the idea of "mystics" in a fantasy setting being mechanically Psis, people born and gifted with telepathic powers, but also the need to feed in some fashion on others. The advantage here is that it allows more for a setting with their powers being hidden more easily. But even here I want to maintain the sense of intimacy when being fed upon even if it becomes "mental" rather than "physical." Similar to the above, there is also a commonly held belief such people eventually turn into the various psychic abominations or eldritch horrors that dot the setting.

My trouble is I think moving from these high archetypal ideas, down to a concrete setting in terms of actual game play. Fitting these sorcerers or mystical into the drama of a fantasy game and its dungeon game play.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Can we hear a little more about your motives for combining comparatively high-brow ideas with dungeon-style play? Also, do you intend for the vampires to be the protagonists or the antagonists (or both)..? It might help us to help you.

[starslayer]

I think it will be important to have a frank discussion with your players about the types of themes your want to represent.

Given your passion for this sort of mythology I think having all of your players be vampires of some sort is a good idea (the fact that adventurers are traditionally murder hobos would help with a reinforcement of that alienation and lack of connection)

You so far have a magical vampire and a psi one. Creating a physical sort will let a pretty traditional df party be composed entirely of vampires.

[Anders]

In the classic Swedish Chill supplement Horrors of the Night there was an extended essay on vampires and why we fear them. The author focuses on three points - Life without Hope, Lust without Love and Death without Peace.

Life without Hope centers on the hopelessness of vampiric existence. Humans can try to make life better for themselves or other, but the vampire's only goal is to try to keep himself 'alive' for thousands and thousands of years. The nihilism and despair inherent in this existence is palpable.

Lust without Love centers on the values of the vampire. Again, self-preservation comes first. When the vampire can do something else, they try to make others like themselves. They cannot be truly creative, they cannot create free men - like Wotan in die Walküre he can only create slaves. The life of the vampire resembles that of the heroin addict - the only thing that matters is the hunger for the next fix and the desire to avoid the shakes.

Death without peace centers on the relationship between vampires and humans. Vampires mock death, mock the religious conception of reward or peace in death and promise only a life of eternal existence. When a shark has taken a loved one from us, we can hope that they have found peace. But when a vampire takes a person, we know that they are condemned to a life of living death.

[Arith Winterfell]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Can we hear a little more about your motives for combining comparatively high-brow ideas with dungeon-style play? Also, do you intend for the vampires to be the protagonists or the antagonists (or both)..? It might help us to help you.

You've got good points there. In fact, I think confusion on those points has been part of my problem. (This is why I always like sharing my ideas with people too, they can sometimes see through my vague points and help me clarify.) I think I was imagining things in terms of the vampire-like characters (be they sorcerers or psis or something else) as both protagonists, allies, and antagonists.

My original earlier ideas centered around a city where humans and vampires had formed a fragile truce of co-existence. And that a series of brutal murderers threatened that stability and co-existence. And also set off feelings on both sides (both religious anti-vampire hate, and vampires at the other end of the spectrum who felt they should rule with an iron fist, not live as equals to "cattle").

Really the more I delve into this in terms of general social repercussions the more I suspect it begins to look like the X-men problem of alienation and contentious issues of co-existence.

I'm not exactly sure how to combine this into the world of Dungeon Fantasy, and that is perhaps one of my most telling issues.

Let's see. . . Dungeon Fantasy strikes me as primarily about acquisition of wealth (or glory) while in contrast the issues I'm pondering deal more with social issues and psychological issues. That doesn't mean I can't use them in Dungeon Fantasy, it just strikes me that I'd need to alter Dungeon Fantasy a bit to get it to "interface" better with the issues I'm wanting to explore.

The more I also think about it, the more I find myself moving away from vampires directly, and more broadly into trying to capture the social framework they explore. That of alienation, desire/longing, and connection that is destructive of personal boundaries by shades and degrees.

I think another thing I've been trying to do is shift away from the vampire focus of Undeath as a metaphor for alienation, and replace it with magic use as alienation, which is seeming to be trickier than I first thought.

Another thing is that while I was comparing stuff to the X-men, I'm not sure I'm aiming at a story about political co-existence, but more like a story about living in the shadows of humanity. I think this was why I was exploring ideas about sorcerers or psis whose magic transform them into monstrosities or eldritch horrors.

I think part of what I'm trying to do is find a way to turn one of the facets of fantasy on its head, with magic becoming alienating force rather than a simply wondrous thing/tool for use by mages.

Perhaps I need to break this down into parts or steps to help me sort this out. If we take alienation by itself as a first step it should be easier. What if we for example say we have mages, who in learning magic gain an understanding of the world that transcends ordinary understanding, say via the skill Hidden Lore. That it inevitably leads to them perceiving things other humans can't or won't see. Perhaps its a fantastical world of spirits, or maybe ghosts of the dead (e.g. Necromancy), maybe Eldritch realities or horrors. This could lead to alienation in various forms such as disadvantages like Phantom Voices or Weirdness Magnet maybe.

I'm not sure about the other two elements yet (the longing for connection, and the twist of connection as consumption). I'll post more as I come up with it if I can.

[Refplace]

Corruption and Spirit mediated magic can be good ways to alienate.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Corruption and Spirit mediated magic can be good ways to alienate.

Great way to explain how vampirism doesn't automatically mean iredeemable evil, but why all powerful vamps are.
Only the truly strong willed and/or altruistic using their abilities never for personal gain can stave off the corruption for long.
Also explain NPCs acknowledging that you haven't done anything evil YET, but we all know it's just a matter of time.

[Arith Winterfell]

Okay, good suggestions!

I went over Corruption rules and Spirit Assisted casting/Spiritual distortion and felt like combining what I mentioned above (having wizards take disadvantages to represent seeing into/knowing Outer Realms) combined with Spirit Assisted casting being available to wizards and non-wizards alike. This works well as I blend things with Lovecraftian horror to a degree focusing on spirits as smaller Lovecraftian horror creatures. This lets me create the feel of full wizards (who learn spells at their standard difficulty) being people alienated by experiencing and understanding the otherworldly. While would-be adepts and cultists are those who (learning spells the easy way from spirit beings/Outer Planar beings) are the ones who eventually succumb to spiritual distortion becoming full on eldritch horrors given time.

So that all covers the alienation aspects well. Interestingly from what I know of Lovecraft's writings he was rather somewhat racist in his views of certain groups and these feelings of alienation toward such groups shaped his ideas about horror (such as the cross breeding of humans and deep ones in Shadow over Innsmouth).

My real issue now is figuring out how to capture the other aspects I'm looking to capture such as a "feeding element" which includes pleasure and a "consumption/control" element and how to work those into the way spell casting works in the setting.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell

Okay, good suggestions!

I went over Corruption rules and Spirit Assisted casting/Spiritual distortion and felt like combining what I mentioned above (having wizards take disadvantages to represent seeing into/knowing Outer Realms) combined with Spirit Assisted casting being available to wizards and non-wizards alike. This works well as I blend things with Lovecraftian horror to a degree focusing on spirits as smaller Lovecraftian horror creatures. This lets me create the feel of full wizards (who learn spells at their standard difficulty) being people alienated by experiencing and understanding the otherworldly. While would-be adepts and cultists are those who (learning spells the easy way from spirit beings/Outer Planar beings) are the ones who eventually succumb to spiritual distortion becoming full on eldritch horrors given time.

So that all covers the alienation aspects well. Interestingly from what I know of Lovecraft's writings he was rather somewhat racist in his views of certain groups and these feelings of alienation toward such groups shaped his ideas about horror (such as the cross breeding of humans and deep ones in Shadow over Innsmouth).

My real issue now is figuring out how to capture the other aspects I'm looking to capture such as a "feeding element" which includes pleasure and a "consumption/control" element and how to work those into the way spell casting works in the setting.

I won't touch HP lovecraft and racisim- that's a topic for a whole other thread not in GURPS.

When it comes to capturing the feeding element- allow your vampires to purchase 'energy reserve: Special recharge (-70%)' and require them to purchase 'leech /w extacy'.

It then become VERY tempting to get one extra energy point that they have the capacity to refill for a mere single character point. The leech ability already has the required extacy element on it, so when they charge they incapacitate there 'victim' with pleasure.

[Arith Winterfell]

Originally Posted by starslayer

I won't touch HP lovecraft and racisim- that's a topic for a whole other thread not in GURPS.

Yes, absolutely. I wasn't meaning to start any discussion about that. :)

When it comes to capturing the feeding element- allow your vampires to purchase 'energy reserve: Special recharge (-70%)' and require them to purchase 'leech /w extacy'.

It then become VERY tempting to get one extra energy point that they have the capacity to refill for a mere single character point. The leech ability already has the required extacy element on it, so when they charge they incapacitate there 'victim' with pleasure.

I'd pondered an option about this as well. I'd also pondered the idea related to it to about having mages in the setting all be necromancers and simply having the ability to drain life force from foes (or even allies) to increase their own power.

Other alternatives I've been pondering were draining things like Will, Memories, Sanity, or things like Hope. Some of these might also work well with the Cthulhuian related feel I've been touching upon.

So far I've noticed that the general direction I've been going with alienation has been one of going from "death" as alienation to "understanding of deeper truths" as alienation. But I'm still unsure how well this shift will work overall.